It's an Old-Fashioned Fence-Raising

Vince often says of his neighborhood, "I live in Whoville. Sometimes people ask me how I can stand to live in Utah and whether I am uncomfortable being a non-Mormon among so many Mormons, and I tell them, it's like living in Whoville. My neighbor to the left plows my walks when it snows; the neighthbor across the street wheels out my garbage can if I forget. Whoville."

The natives of Whoville have outdone themselves today. Vince shares a fence with his neighbor to the right and during one of the vicious snowstorms this winter, when the wind came tearing down the mountainside at more than 60 miles an hour, the old wooden fence blew over.

The woman next door apologized profusely, but waited 3 months to have it fixed. In the meantime, spring has arrived and the tipped-over fence has been killing Vince's yard and garden. Today I came over to his house to find about 20 men of all ages in the yard, ripping down the old fence. The men seem to be taking shifts. New men keep arriving all the time, the fence posts have gone into the ground now, and cement is being mixed. Jackets and sweatshirts hang from the trees, since the heavy labor has heated everyone up. Women stop by every once in a while with liters of soda. The boys that are too young and therefore too skinny to help with the hard labor are tossing around a football while they wait for their fathers to finish. I feel like I am witnessing an Amish barn raising.

How I Spent My Weekend

On Thursday, the power steering went out in my car. Concerned, but not overly, I drove it around for a day. I didn't want to have it in the shop on the day of my first Physical Therapy appointment. That's right, I am FINALLY getting physical therapy for the stupid shoulder injury I acquired while talking on the phone. Yes, that is right, the phone. I first started feeling pain in December and a physical therapist friend of mine strongly encouraged me to go and see a physical therapist to be evaluated and work on my shoulder. I ignored this sage advice, because I thought, like you probably do as well, that phones can't do THAT much damage. Four months later, still in pain, I finally went to my first appointment on Friday. I spent two hours getting worked diagnosed. I had no idea these things take so long. I thought they just kind of massaged your shoulder and taught you some stretches.

Then, I took my car into the shop. "It'll just take a few minutes and we'll diagnose it," the woman behind the counter said. An hour later, they did diagnose it- a turn steering belt. "It'll just take a little while to fix," she said. Two hours later, it was road ready again. By this time, my shoulder had stiffened up in response to sitting for so long after the physical therapy. In much more pain, and $100 poorer, I drove home to spend my Friday night with Advil and a hot pad. The only thing roaring was my head.

The next day, Vince went snowboarding and invited me to join. I passed, because I didn't want to get injured before starting my pilates instructor training. The $1,000 I put into it is non-refundable. I also stayed home from tennis (an enormous sacrifice for me) to give my shoulder time to heal. I decided that I would go for a hike instead. I headed up the mountain. I never made it to the trailhead. On my way there, I flew into an intersection going 50 MPH in my little car. An enormous SUV was already in the intersection, much to my surprise since another vehicle had blocked my field of vision. I had a second to think, "They are running the red light." And then, "I am not going to actually hit them; that would be crazy." The next thing I knew, the airbags were already deflating. I hopped out of my car and an ambulance that happened to be driving behind me blocked off the traffic so I didn't get hit. It took a little while for the shock to wear off. As it started to, I started crying, and then kept crying. Lesha came and rescued me, but not before I watched my car be towed away. The shop estimates it would cost $12,000 to repair. I don't know if it was worth that much when it was new. It certainly isn't worth what I still owe on it. And I have a $500 deductible in addition. And a $1,000 deductible on my health insurance. So I am at least $2,000 into this mess, and that's without actually owning a car.

I have four sources of consolation: 1) No one was injured in the other car, 2) My only injury is very minor- a bruise where my cartilidge joins my ribcage and where the seatbelt held me in place, 3) the doctor thinks that I will be healed in time to do my pilates training, and 4) at the autoshop on Friday, I decided not to replace my windshield wipers. That's $12 extra bucks to put towards my new car!